The Netflix drama Adolescence continues to dominate the streaming charts, and the series appears to have touched a collective nerve. Although fictional, many of the issues addressed in the drama reflect the reality of the world teenagers are growing up in, as well as some contemporary concepts parents are struggling to navigate, or of which they may have been entirely unaware.
One talking point has been the various meanings behind emojis used by teenagers online.
In the drama, a police investigator’s son explains to his bewildered father that the various colours of “love heart” emojis can have vastly different meanings. “Red means love, purple horny, yellow ‘I’m interested, are you interested’, pink ‘I’m interested but not in sex’,” and so on.
The “red pill” emoji is described in the show as a “call to action by the manosphere” while other emojis, such as the “kidney bean”’ are connected to the so-called “incel” movement of involuntary celibates or men who believe they are denied sex because of their looks.
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Dublin teenager Olivia Paul (14) thought Adolescence “was really good”. She and her friends don’t use emojis in the same way as they were used in the drama, she says, although she is familiar with the term incel.
She has seen misogynistic posts which have bothered her, particularly when she looks at the comments and sees people agreeing with them. “That is a big factor in how men look at women. Even younger boys seeing those comments.”
She feels adults don’t understand that social media is important to teenagers “because it’s a space with other teenagers with teenagers’ perspectives”. And it’s a place, she explains, where teenagers can sometimes bring their solutions to adult ideas. So the Government is planning to spend €9 million on phones pouches? Well, some teens appear to be a step ahead.
“You know the Yondr [a Californian company] pouches for phones?” she asks. “The schools will start bringing in programmes like that, but then on social media you’ll see videos joking about it, and how to open them.”
Olivia feels phones have probably affected teenagers’ attention spans, but “it’s just normal because everyone’s doing it”.
If parents confiscate phones as a punishment or consequence for something, Olivia says it’s really hard and upsetting for teenagers. “It feels like you’re missing out. On TikTok it doesn’t really matter because you’re just scrolling”, but “with Snapchat it’s your friends.” The feeling of being socially cut off is difficult, she explains. “It’s more about staying in contact with people. A lot of my friends don’t have their phones taken, or if they do it ends up getting given back under the time [it was supposed to be confiscated for] because they just can’t go without it.”
She doesn’t think adults understand what a big deal posting on social media can be. “If you’re posting, because everyone can see that, you’re thinking about what everyone else is thinking about you. But then if you aren’t posting, it looks like you aren’t doing anything. So, there’s a pressure to post.”
[ Adolescence: Five truths about our teenage boys we need to address urgentlyOpens in new window ]
Olivia’s mother Claire thought Adolescence was “a fantastic piece of TV”, but admits she had not fully understood the impact of what are routinely described as toxic male influencers. “I was aware of it, but I also wasn’t aware of it. Is that because I’m a mother of daughters as opposed to a mother of sons?” she ponders.
“I think on a bigger scale we have to look societally what are we doing with children and phones, and adults and phones. And what are we doing about the human contact we’re losing?”
Eoghan Muldoon, from Sligo, is 13 and watched Adolescence with his mother, Sinéad Canney. “It was pretty good,” he says. Eoghan is the same age as the main protagonist in the drama, Jamie. Eoghan got his first phone recently and hasn’t had much access to social media.
In spite of the short amount of time he has had the phone, he has already come across some misogynistic influencers. “I was kind of shocked, but also, I would see how some people would take that on. And I don’t think it’s right.”
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Eoghan believes a lot of things have changed since most adults were teenagers. “Words have changed, and emojis. Some kids do use them as secret stuff, but I don’t. Emojis are just how you feel.” He feels teenagers need to have phones by 13 or 14. “Without that … you wouldn’t be able to go out with your friends.” He thinks there is benefit to some parts of social media as it can be helpful.
“My mum does check my phone,” he explains and he accepts her reasons for that, but admits “sometimes it can be a bit annoying. But I do think it’s necessary because teenagers can do stupid stuff at times”.
I don’t think adults realise how much we learn from social media and how much information we take in. Sometimes I think we learn more from social media than we do in school
— Zoe Breen (17)
He found watching Adolescence to be beneficial. “I learned that sometimes [you need] to control your anger … and to be careful on social media. It’s pretty important because it’s very dangerous to be on social media.”
He’s not the only one who found watching Adolescence to be a learning experience. His mother Sinéad said she had “no idea about any of that. We were just shocked to the core”. She used the opportunity to chat with her two older boys about internet safety. “I don’t allow phones in the [bed]room … and I explained that they’re just not socially or emotionally mature yet. And I said, ‘If I knew that there was going to be a gang down a certain road that will possibly mug you and beat you up, I’m not going to let you walk down that road. So therefore I’m not going to put you on an app that you’re not mature and responsible enough to be able to handle.‘”
Zoe Breen (17), from Dublin, found the series sad. Her experience of emojis isn’t as depicted in the show either, she says. But her mother Michelle Bennett says she personally panicked when she learned what different coloured hearts could represent. “I thought they were just nice colours.”
Adults “definitely don’t understand having contact with your friends on social media”, says Zoe. “Especially when they compare it to the level they might contact their own friends.”
“My mum might send a WhatsApp, whereas we’d use Snapchat. We post things on our stories, so people know where you are. It’s very hard to explain to them [adults] that your friends can see pretty much everything that you’re doing.” While the idea that “Big Brother” is always watching might be intolerable for many adults, Zoe doesn’t see others knowing where she is at all times as a problem. She doesn’t feel isolated in an online world as some adults believe young people to be.
“It’s harder for the older generation to understand that we’re influenced quite easily on social media. One person could say something, and nearly everyone could be influenced if it goes viral,” says Zoe.
“I don’t think you [adults] realise how much we learn from social media and how much information we take in. Sometimes I think we learn more from social media than we do in school, which is crazy but you do take in a lot of information. I find it easier to learn online.”
Michelle says she’s surprised to hear that Zoe feels she learns a lot from social media. “I don’t know whether I feel a bit sad about that.”
Zoe believes adults don’t realise how simple it is to make a fake account, meaning it’s very easy for parents to find themselves following what they believe to be their child’s actual social media account, when really it’s just a decoy. “Parents have no idea. They have absolutely no idea … I’d say at least 80-85 per cent of the times kids would make a fake account.”
When you’re opening up a social media account for the first time it’s incredible how fast you can go down that red pill route of ‘I’m alone. Everyone’s against me. Everybody hates me’ sort of thing. It’s nuts
— Calum (16)
Calum (not his real name) is 16 and thought Adolescence was “really good”. He was already familiar with the meaning of “red pills” and “incels”.
He attends an all-boys school and sometimes hears misogyny among his peers. “It’s sort of the environment,” he admits. “Some people just say it, and you know it’s not right. And they just can’t get it into their head they’re just talking nonsense.
“When you’re opening up a social media account for the first time it’s incredible how fast you can go down that red pill route of ‘I’m alone. Everyone’s against me. Everybody hates me’ sort of thing. It’s nuts.
“You’re seeing it so much, and sometimes you could have had a bad day, or something bad could have happened to you in school, and you see that on your ‘for you’ page … and you’d take it more to heart.”
Calum’s teachers are very conscious of it, he says. Conversations can happen at lunchtime. “Most of the time it’s friendly banter thing. Everyone slags everyone. But sometimes it gets to a point that it gets a bit much.”
A lot of difficulties come back to the content that Jamie was seeing in this programme, “where it’s [saying] ‘women are bad. Gay people are bad. Foreigners are bad’,” he says.
He doesn’t think adults realise “the amount of dangerous content you can see on social media and how quickly it can get served to younger children”.
Having said this, his phone is very important to him. “It’s nice to have that instant avenue of communication with all my friends. It’s like I’ve got them right there. I don’t have to ring them up. I don’t have to go and see them if they live further away.” He believes phones help with social connection, rather than the opposite.
Calum doesn’t think adults understand that teenagers can easily get around rules they may have in place about certain social media platforms, by installing and uninstalling apps ahead of parental checking. He thinks parents believe they have more control than they actually do. “It’s incredibly easy to access stuff. You can access through the browser as well.”
